Remedia amoris

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The Remedia amoris (sometimes called remediorum amoris liber unus , dt. Remedy for love ) are a work of the Roman poet Ovid , which follows on from his work Ars amatoria . While the Ars amatoria provides advice on how best to find love and what can help to lead it into eternity, the Remedia Amoris provides assistance when things are not going so well in your love life and when the only option left is to put an end to love.

Conception

Right at the beginning of the Remedia amoris it is made clear that this work does not serve to revoke the Ars amatoria , but that it serves to help people with lovesickness who are threatened with death if they do not stop loving: “Qui, nisi desierit, misero periturus amore est, […] ”(v. 21). When one is over the pain, one can still reach for the ars amatoria and be happy with a new love.

This clarification can be found in the Proöm , in which Amor , the son of Venus and protective goddess of Ars amatoria , complains that war is being waged against him ( Bella mihi […] bella parantur , cf. v. 2). In response, however, Ovid made it clear that the people in the Ars amatoria had already been encouraged enough to venerate Cupid and his mother, and that now Apollo , the god of poetry and music, was best suited as the patron god of Remedia amoris .

This statement is substantiated as follows: Venus is the goddess of love, that is, of falling in love, and can therefore no longer be the protective goddess when it comes to "falling out of love": Tu pariter vati, tu succure medenti - Apollo should now be for the poet and the doctor come to the rescue (cf. v. 77).

The disposition suggests that this text must be an didactic poem . In this case, the poet Ovid acts as a teacher who, with the help of the god Apollo, teaches his student Amor. Thus, the three-person constellation is present, which is typical for a didactic poem. In addition, the elegiac distich is available as a meter , which is continued in the individual didactic pieces.

Structure and content

The Remedia are principally written for two cases of the parting relationship between two lovers. First, Ovid gives advice on breaking relationships that are still in the "early stages" and on the other hand with instructions on how to end relationships that have already advanced.

In the first case, Ovid begins with the measure of nipping love in the bud. (V. 79-114). From this passage comes the proverbial Principiis obsta ("Resist the beginnings" or "Wehret the beginnings"). When the relationship has already progressed, Ovid instructs the lover to physically over-satiate himself with the beloved in order to become treatable at all (vv. 115-134).

If the “patient” is able to treat at this stage, Ovid advises traveling or leaving Rome in order to establish a physical and psychological distance from the partner (vv. 135–248). After he had advised against using magic medicines for healing, he shows possibilities for those affected who are unable to leave Rome. He first recommends the measure of healing oneself through autosuggestive monologues (vv. 299-330).

Ovid goes further in the following and instructs the patient to stage the partner in an unfavorable way, such as B. “to persuade a partner who is not gifted to vote to sing in public” (vv. 331–356) and “to make a partner with bad teeth laugh” (V- 345f). Ultimately, this is supposed to lead to behavior that is harmful to love during intimate intercourse, for which Ovid also gives almost embarrassing instructions (vv. 361-440). He even advises memorizing the flaws on the partner's body if the partner is lying there tired after having sex (v. 420ff).

In the following it is also assumed that the patient remains close to his misfortune. He should at least take a second partner (a second friend) (vv. 441–488), at least simulate indifference towards the old one (vv. 489–522). Now the lover should be able to physically separate again. Overall, the structure of the book is to be viewed as axially symmetrical: the worst condition is in the middle (vv. 331–548), the edges get better, so to speak.

Now the patient becomes sociable; H. Avoidance of loneliness, admonished (vv. 579-608). Back with his friends, he now seems to have been cured for the time being. Ovid is already dealing with the possibility of relapse (v. 609–698). At the end, in order to prevent this, there are again meditative exercises, which also include symbolic burning, the avoidance of erotic reading and awareness training with regard to potential rivals (vv. 673–794). The most important thing has now been achieved: man and woman - they too were envisaged (vv. 49–52) - are healed and offer the “holy poet” a sacrifice of thanks instead of a doctor's fee (vv. 811–814).

Addressees

In the course of the Remedia, the misunderstanding quickly arises that the entire work is written exclusively for men. The "measures", tips and situations described by Ovid deal almost exclusively with the topic of how a man can break away from a woman. There is, however, one passage, albeit a very short one, in which Ovid expressly makes it clear that his work is not only aimed at men:

Sed quaecumque viris, vobis quoque dicta, puellae,
credite: diversis partibus arma damus,
e quibus ad vestros siquid non pertinet usus,
attamen exemplo multa docere potest.

But whatever has been said here for the men has also been said for you, girls,
believe me: I give guns to the two different parties.
If some of this is not for your benefit,
it can teach a lot by example.

The ratio of the number of lines written for the respective gender (of a total of 814 lines, Ovid only dedicates the four lines listed to the female gender in the Remedia) does not necessarily lead the reader to believe that this passage is important.

Text editions and translations (some with commentary)

  • Hans Joachim Geisler : P. Ovidius Naso Remedia amoris. With commentary on verse 1--396 . Diss. Berlin 1969.
  • Christina Lucke : P. Ovidius Naso Remedia amoris. Commentary on verse 397-814 . Diss. Berlin 1982.
  • Edward J. Kenney (Ed.): P. Ovidi Nasonis Amores. Medicamini faciei femineae. Ars amatoria. Remedia amoris , Oxford 1995. [Critical text edition]
  • Publius Ovidius Naso: Remedia amoris - remedies against love . Latin / German, transl. and ed. by Niklas Holzberg , Stuttgart 2011.

literature

  • Michael von Albrecht : History of Roman Literature . Volume 1, Munich 2009, p. 628.
  • David A. Jones: Enjoinder and argument in Ovid's "Remedia amoris" . Stuttgart 1997.
  • Niklas Holzberg: Ovid. Dichter und Werk , Munich 1997, pp. 115–119.
  • Christina Meckelnborg : P. Ovidius Naso, Remedia amoris. Commentary on verse 397-814 . Bonn 1982.
  • Erich Woytek : "In medio et mihi Caesar erit ...". Gel imitations in the center of Ovid's Remedia amoris . In: Wiener Studien 113 (2000), pp. 181–214.
  • Ernst Zinn (Ed.): Ovids Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris. Construction studies . Stuttgart 1970.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Ovid, Remedia 49 ff.